From Calculating Machines to Quantum Computers

A Brief History of Computers

A computer is a machine that can be programmed to perform arithmetic or logical operations automatically.
Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs.
A computer system includes hardware, operating system, and peripheral equipment needed for full operation.
Computers are used in a broad range of industrial and consumer products as control systems.
Early computers were meant to be used only for calculations and used simple manual instruments like the abacus.
The first digital electronic calculating machines were developed during World War II.
The speed, power, and versatility of computers have been increasing dramatically ever since then.
A modern computer consists of at least one processing element, typically a central processing unit (CPU) in the form of a microprocessor.
Peripheral devices allow information to be retrieved from an external source and enable the result of operations to be saved and retrieved.
The first mechanical computer was invented by Charles Babbage in the early 19th century.
During the first half of the 20th century, many scientific computing needs were met by increasingly sophisticated analog computers.
By the 1950s, the success of digital electronic computers had spelled the end for most analog computing machines.A Brief History of Computing Hardware
Colossus was the world's first electronic digital programmable computer, built in 1944.
The ENIAC was the first electronic programmable computer built in the U.S., designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania.
The stored-program computer was proposed by Alan Turing in his seminal 1936 paper, allowing instructions to be stored in memory.
The Manchester Baby was the world's first stored-program computer, built in 1948.
Transistors replaced vacuum tubes in computer designs in the 1950s, leading to the "second generation" of computers.
The MOSFET, invented in 1959, enabled the practical use of MOS transistors as memory cell storage elements and led to the development of MOS semiconductor memory.
The integrated circuit (IC) was first conceived in 1952 and invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor.
The MOS integrated circuit led to the invention of the microprocessor, with the Intel 4004 being the first single-chip microprocessor.
System on a Chip (SoCs) are complete computers on a microchip and are the driving force behind modern computing.
Mobile computers, such as laptops and smartphones, have become increasingly popular due to advancements in portable battery life and miniaturization of computing resources.
Computers can be classified by architecture, size, form-factor, and purpose.
Hardware covers all tangible physical objects in a computer, including circuits, computer chips, displays, keyboards, and printers.
Computers have four main components: the arithmetic logic unit (ALU), the control unit, the memory, and the input/output devices.Computer Architecture: Components and Operations
The central processing unit (CPU) is composed of the control unit, arithmetic logic unit (ALU), and registers.
The ALU performs arithmetic and logic operations, which can be limited or include advanced functions.
Memory stores information in cells with numbered addresses and can represent anything numerically.
Each memory cell stores binary numbers in groups of eight bits (bytes) and can be used to store larger numbers by using consecutive bytes.
Registers are special memory cells used for frequently needed data items to increase the computer's speed.
Input/output (I/O) devices are peripherals that allow a computer to exchange information with the outside world.
Multitasking allows a computer to switch rapidly between running programs, and multiprocessing distributes work across several CPUs.
Software includes computer programs, libraries, and related non-executable data, and is divided into system and application software.
Programs are a defining feature of modern computers and can be written in thousands of programming languages.
The stored program architecture allows instructions to be stored in memory alongside the data they operate on.
Machine code represents individual instructions as unique numerical codes and can be manipulated inside the computer in the same way as numeric data.
Programming languages are designed to be concise and unambiguous, and can be translated into machine code by a compiler or interpreter.Overview of Computers: History, Programming, Bugs, Networking, Future, and AI
Assembly language was used extensively in early computers like MOS Technology 6502, 6510, and Zilog Z80.
High-level programming languages are used to write practical programs as they reduce programmer errors and are compiled into machine language.
Program design involves analyzing problems, using programming constructs, and devising procedures while larger programs require formal software methodologies.
Errors in computer programs are called bugs and are usually due to programmer error or oversight in program design.
Networking started in the 1950s with the SAGE system and evolved to the ARPANET, which became the Internet.
Computer operating systems and applications were modified to include the ability to define and access the resources of other computers on the network.
The number of computers that are networked is growing phenomenally, and wireless networking has made it ubiquitous.
Computers do not need to be electronic or have a processor, RAM, or a hard disk, as any device that processes information qualifies as a computer.
Research is ongoing to make computers out of new types of technology like optical, DNA, neural, and quantum computers.
Different designs of computers can give very different performance for particular problems, for example, quantum computers can potentially break some modern encryption algorithms very quickly.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are emerging fields that involve computers that can learn and adapt, with rule-based and pattern recognition systems being two major categories.
The use of computers has spawned the need for many standards organizations, clubs, and societies of both a formal and informal nature.